A personal blog on fatherhood, music and more

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I recently (or recentlyish) wrote a chapter for a book about Joy Division and today (Ian Curtis’s 60th birthday) is the day the book is finally released. So does that now make me a proper writer?

I love writing, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t spend so many of my precious spare moments writing this blog. I never intended the blog to be a springboard to a career in writing though, and that is still the case. I actually quite enjoy my real job, although it is one that I suspect many people would find awfully boring, and am happy to keep writing as a hobby.

Still though, it’s pretty exciting to have some of my words in print, it gives me something to show off to my friends and family (and don’t worry I certainly will be doing that). It’s more permanent than the many thousands of words I have poured onto the internet, and it gives me the ego boost of knowing that there are some other people out there who think what I write is worth reading.

I also really enjoyed the writing itself, writing a piece that was more in-depth and much longer than anything I publish on the blog, researching, drafting, re-drafting, knowing that there was no way I could go back and edit my work once it was done. Even if only for my own amusement I would love to write similar, longer pieces in futures.

My instinct as an English person is to self-deprecate, and minimise my own achievements, but I have to admit I’m proud of what I’ve done. To be in the same book as Stephen Morris (who wrote the preface), Kevin Cummins (who wrote the intro) and loads of great writers makes me happy. And if this turns out to be the only thing I ever get published, well, that will be enough to me.

Joy Devotion : Ian Curtis and The Importance of Fan Culture is out now on Headpress. Thanks to Dr. Jennifer Otter Bickerdike for making this happen.